We've had our new dining room table for almost a month now - and gave our old table and chairs to some friends. That means we've had no chairs! We *do* have a couple of flea market finds...some old ladderback chairs that are a little too short for our table. My orginal plan was to just collect old chairs like that from yardsales and flea markets. The problem that I'm having is finding them in good condition (not wobbly with worn out seats) and also I'm having trouble finding old chairs that have the proper seat height. I even searched ebay, but I'm reluctant to buy chairs from there because I can actually try them out to determine their stability, plus usually if they are really nice chairs, they're just way out of my budget - and THEN there are shipping costs.

Last week on Ebay, though, I did find someone that had an Ebay store and he sells rocking chairs, ladderback chairs, etc. The chairs were a decent price, about $79 each, but shipping was $30 per chair - and I need 8 chairs! But I read about his chairs on his site and he said that the chairs were make by Hinkle Chair Company in Springfield, Tennessee - just a hop, skip and a jump from here (no shipping costs - we can pick them up ourselves! ) Hinkle Chair company is a family owned business that has been around since 1834 and they are the company that makes rocking chairs for Cracker Barrel - which are really good quality, sturdy chairs that will last forever.

So I did a little research and found the Hinkle Chair Company website. I contacted someone from the company and asked him to give me a price on the chair that I'm looking for. He quickly got back to me and let me know the price was $36 to $41, depending on if I wanted slat or rush seats, and all 8 chairs would cost me about $322 if I went with the slat seats. I couldn't believe it! I was expecting to pay at least $80 to $100 per chair!!!!

I talked it over with Jeff and we decided to go ahead and put our order in because, well, we need chairs, lol. I went back to the Hinkle site, which appears to be new because not all of their items were listed yet. But I did notice that they had added their ladderback chairs to their catalog. I was puzzled to see that the price was not $36, but $69. My heart sank. I knew we really couldn't afford to spend $600 on chairs right now.

So I contacted Blake, (the Hinkle representative that quoted me the $36 price) and asked him about the price difference. I just received an email back from him. He wrote "I think I quoted you the[b]wholesale price[/b]...." [size=9]([i]Oh drats!!!![/i]) [/size] [b]"...but will honor the price that was quoted." [/b] I'm just dumbfounded! I'm getting these chairs at half the cost - they are losing money - but they, or I should say Blake, gracefully honored his word. Wow, I just can't believe it. I would highly recommend this company and I plan on supporting them in the future if we need more chairs or rocking chairs or a porch swing.

I just placed my order - I'm so excited! Here are the simple chairs we are getting. It took a while for me decide between the rush seating and the wooden slats, but I finally decided on the slat seating because I think they will be easier to clean - food and drink spills will just fall right through the slats, plus Jeff really likes the style. ***Edit: We decided to go with the rush seats afterall...we don't have to worry about loose slats in the future....*** Here is the chair (imagine with rush seating):

I'm sitting here this very sunny morning enjoying my hot cup of coffee. I so look forward to it each morning. On mornings that I have to take Sydney and Adrian to school, we all have to get up way too early for our own good, lol, and so when we get back home around 7:30, the girls just want to snuggle up in the living room and watch PBS, I get them a breakfast bar and some milk, then I sit down to nurse my irish cream laden coffee. This is my way of warming up to the day:)

Things are still pretty upside down here at home. Our french doors and kitchen windows are now installed, so most of the dirty work is over (for now). Soon we'll be putting up drywall and trimming out the windows from the inside. But for now, I'm perfectly content to just have SUNSHINE!!!! Yesterday, I didn't do any kind of work in the other parts of the house because I couldn't pull myself out of the kitchen. And boy, does the rest of the house need attention! Big time:( A lot of stuff, garage sale things, etc., just got piled onto our loveseat and other parts of the living room, I have a ton of laundry to do, and the girls once perfectly organized room is now slightly trashed. It's amazing how if you don't stay right on top of things practically 24/7, everything just starts falling apart. But oh well. Such is life.

Well, yesterday was a big day. Actually, it was a very big weekend. On Saturday, Jeff completed the framing for the windows in the dining area but ran out of daylight and didn't get to install the windows. Yesterday, he knocked out the wall where our french doors would go. As you'll see in the pictures below, we had no walls whatsoever on one side of our kitchen and dining room! I'm sure our neighbors enjoyed the show, lol. It was crazy but a lot was accomplished. Norm, our very multi-talented friend [size=9](he's a hairdresser, he can sew, AND he's a great carpenter!) [/size]came and helped Jeff get the doors installed. It was a big job and took quite a while. Norm's wife, my good friend and the mother of the the girls' best friends, brought over some BBQ and salad and potato salad [size=10](she is amazing too!) [/size]later in the day and it was so nice...the kids running around outside having a blast, us enjoying all the craziness while trying to keep the [b]six [/b]kids from stepping on nails, and of course the guys working on the doors. I wish I would have taken pictures of everyone... But it was a day to remember, that's for sure!

Below are some pictures of our progress so far. The doors are in and the windows will be installed this afternoon [size=9](it may rain tomorrow, and having the windows before then may be a good thing)[/size]. You'll see how the inside and outside looked before everything was ripped out and then you'll see how they currently look. I took a picture of the dining area this morning so that you can see just how much light comes in now, and the light you see is diffused because of the plastic we have up. I am *thrilled* to wake up to and to come home to a cheery kitchen.

So the windows and doors are our first kitchen project. I'm not exactly sure what is next. Probably the countertops and sink, plastering the walls, and then the floors, followed by the lighting. I'm dreading the floors because we're going to be staining them ourselves, and that process will take awhile. We'll have to move the appliances and furniture to the living room!

So here are the photos. I love the photo of the girls having lunch in our wall-less dining room, hehe.